


broken phones & busted-up bicycles

by AlmondRose



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: (maybe????), Canon What Canon, Cassandra Cain is Black Bat, Damian Wayne is Robin, Family Bonding, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Tim Drake is Red Robin, not really fluff but it's light hearted, putting in additional tags...my worst enemy, the T rating is for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22012663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondRose/pseuds/AlmondRose
Summary: Stephanie Brown is missing and it's up to her two favorite batboys to find out what happened to her.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown & Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown & Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne
Comments: 12
Kudos: 132
Collections: Batfam Christmas Stocking 2019





	broken phones & busted-up bicycles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LazuliQuetzal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazuliQuetzal/gifts).



> wooo! this was written for my THIRD year doing batfam christmas stocking, which is always the best marker of the holiday season lol. i kind of took the prompts and did whatever/winged it a little hahaha. hope you enjoy despite all that, lazuliquetzal!!!
> 
> also in this fic tim is red robin because i CANNOT bring myself to call him "drake"

Here are the facts:

  1. Steph and Tim were supposed to meet at the arcade at noon.
  2. Steph is not the most punctual person, but she always shows up within an hour of the appointed time, or texts if something comes up. 
  3. Tim has been waiting outside the arcade for four hours.
  4. Steph has not shown up. 
  5. Ergo, something is wrong. 



Tim checks his watch for the twentieth time in five minutes, hoping that maybe he’s wrong and it’s still 12:15, and frowns. It is not 12:15. 

He picks up his skateboard and tucks it under his arm, heading inside the arcade. The attendant recognizes him--his dad owns the place, after all--and says, “Is there a problem, Mr. Drake?”

“Nah,” Tim says, giving the room a cursory sweep. He eyes all the blonde people with long hair--the teenagers that are too tall to be Steph, the short people that are too young to be Steph, the surfer kid who is too male to be Steph. He purses his lips and ducks back out of the arcade. 

Okay, something is  _ seriously  _ wrong. Tim turns on his heel and begins to think of where to start his search--Crystal’s apartment isn’t too far, is it?--and promptly bumps into his brother. 

“Watch it, Drake,” Damian spits, and Tim backs up, holding his free hand up in a peace offering. He does  _ not  _ have time to deal with this right now. He looks around Damian’s shoulders for his little posse--Maps or Maya or Colin or Jon or whoever--and sees nobody. 

“What are you doing here?” Tim asks, because although he knows Damian goes to the arcade on occasion, he doesn’t know if he would come without a friend. 

Damian crosses his arms. 

“Stephanie is  _ late  _ for our movie,” he says. “And she told me that she would be here with you before she met with me. Where are you keeping her?”

“I’m not,” Tim says. “She never showed up.”

“And you never left the arcade?” Damian asks, eyebrow canted halfway up his forehead. Tim feels flustered. 

“Uh, no,” he says. “I thought she’d come eventually--maybe I got the time wrong--”

“You are so stupid,” Damian huffs. “I would assume you texted her, but perhaps I am incorrect?”

“No, I did,” Tim says, thinking of the five or ten unanswered texts. “Did you?”

“Clearly,” Damian says. “Come. Now it is a mystery.”

Tim doesn’t like Damian bossing him around, but he admits that detective work is easier with another pair of eyes. Conspiracy theory, but  _ that’s  _ why Batman needs a Robin, Tim thinks sometimes. 

“We’ll start with Crystal,” Tim says, giving in. He notes, belatedly, that Damian is wearing roller skates, which is honestly easier for him. Tim drops his skateboard and off they go. 

Tim makes a wrong turn that Damian corrects, which is honestly kind of embarrassing that Tim’s little brother knows where his best friend lives better than he does. 

They roll up to Crystal’s townhouse and Tim tucks his skateboard back under his arm and hops up the stairs to the door. Damian stays below the trio of steps, probably so he doesn’t fall and die going up stairs on wheels. 

Tim knocks. 

Footsteps sound and the door opens. Crystal looks vaguely frazzled but she always looks vaguely frazzled, so Tim doesn’t know if that’s supposed to be a bad sign or not. 

“Tim?” Crystal says, sounding surprised. 

“Hey, uh, have you seen Steph? She never showed up to the arcade, or her and Damian’s movie,” Tim asks, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to point at his brother. 

“No,” Crystal says. “She left at eleven thirty to meet up with you at the arcade, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”

“Okay,” Tim says. 

“Do you think something is wrong?” Crystal asks. 

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Tim says. “She can take care of herself.”

Except lots can happen in Gotham to a teenage girl biking by herself. Tim doesn’t want to think of the possibilities. 

“Well,” Crystal says. “Keep me updated.”

“We will,” Tim promises, and then Crystal shuts the door and Tim turns around to meet back with Damian. “So that’s not good.”

“We should call the manor, in case they’ve heard something,” Damian says. Surprisingly reasonable, Tim thinks, so he gives the go-ahead. 

Damian calls Alfred, who says he hasn’t seen Steph since patrol last night. This is not boding well for anyone. 

“Well, let’s retrace her steps,” Tim says. They already went from the arcade back to her house, but it only seems to make sense to go to the arcade again. Tim keeps his eyes peeled for any clues, unsure what he’ll even find. 

“There,” Damian says, pointing. Tim follows his finger across the street and sees too many people to catch exactly what Damian’s pointing at. They cross, and Damian leads Tim to an alleyway and points out the purple bicycle crammed between the graffitied brick wall and the dumpster. 

“How did you even see that?...never mind,” Tim says, and he pulls the bike out. It has a popped wheel and blood splattered on the handlebars, and the pedals are dented. But even with all that, it’s still undoubtedly Steph’s bike. Tim recognizes the hot pink water bottle holder and the Hello Kitty stickers along the handlebars, as well as the black Batman Brand™ bike seat with the batsignal plastered on it. 

“It appears as if there was an altercation,” Damian says. “The bike was probably crushed when she was snatched.”

“Do you think that’s  _ her  _ blood or her attackers’?” Tim asks. There’s not enough blood for Tim to be super worried, but still. Blood was spilled. 

“It will not matter if we do not find her,” Damian says. Tim thinks it matters a little, but okay. 

“Sure,” he says, and he pulls out his phone. “I’ll just, uh, hack into her phone and we can track her down.”

  
“Excellent,” Damian says, turning on his heel and putting his fingers together under his chin and looking vaguely like a tiny evil mastermind. Tim raises his eyebrows but Damian maybe just complimented him, so he says nothing. 

He downloads the program that will enable him access to her phone, and then he and Damian head to the nearest place where they store their uniforms--the Clocktower. 

Babs isn’t home, so Tim shoots her a text and she unlocks it for them, and they go inside to change. By the time they’re done, Red Robin checks his phone again and finds that his program is downloaded. He clicks on the icon representing Steph and shows the results to his little brother. 

“That’s not far from here,” Robin says, and they leave the Clocktower via the window. They arrive at the place where Steph’s phone is, which is an office building that Red Robin thinks his dad owns, actually. 

“Why would kidnappers take her here?” he asks.

“You search the base of the building and I will search the roof,” Robin says, which is code for “IDK dude” but Damian never just  _ says  _ that. 

“Fine,” Red Robin says, because he’s learned that sometimes arguing gets him nowhere. “If you find anything,  _ tell me.”  _

“Whatever,” Robin says, and they part ways. Red Robin circles the building for more clues and then grimaces before opening up the dumpster and peering inside. Robin has probably broken into the building for no reason by now, Red Robin thinks. 

Inside the dumpster are four full trash bags, none of which have spilled over, thank god. There’s also a few sacks of dog poop, also sealed tight, and a banana peel, and an empty bag of fast food, and a phone. 

Red Robin reaches for it. The screen is shattered and the case is a purple otterbox with a Wonder Woman emblem on the back. It won’t turn on and Red Robin throws it back into the dumpster and reaches for his comm.

“Found her phone,” he says. “It got ditched here.”

“Damn it!” Robin says. Red Robin considers chatisiting him for language and does not. “I will be out shortly.”

Red Robin waits for him and considers their next move. He digs Steph’s phone back out and puts it in an evidence bag from his belt, deciding they can fingerprint it or something. 

Robin climbs out of a window above Red Robin’s head and flips down to meet him. 

“We should check Father’s tracker on Stephanie,” Robin says. “Perhaps the people who abducted her were too idiotic to find it.”

“That’s a good idea,” Tim admits begrudgingly. 

“Of course it is,” Robin says importantly. “I have already called Father for assistance.”

“What?” Red Robin says. 

“He’s on his way,” Robin says. Red Robin groans and buries his face in his hands. They can absolutely do this without Batman’s help. It’s just one missing person--and a missing person who’s totally capable of escaping on her own, assuming she was taken by some regular-level cronies. She’s only been missing for about six hours, so the guilty party don’t even have that much of a head start. 

Now that Robin’d called Batman, though, there was nothing to do but wait for him, so they did.

About ten minutes later, the Batmobile roared to a stop right outside the building. It was weird, seeing it in broad daylight, although the sun would go down soon so Batman would shortly be in his natural habitat. 

The passenger door opened.

“Get in, losers,” a familiar, not-Batman voice called. “We’ve got a sister to rescue.”

Red Robin crawls into the shotgun seat and Robin crams in after him, pulling the door shut. 

“What are you doing here?” Red Robin asks.

“Helping Steph,” Black Bat answers. “I intercepted Robin’s message and borrowed the Batmobile.”

“Does Father know about this?” Robin demands. Black Bat shrugs and floors it. The Batmobile speeds away. 

“He didn’t need to know!” she shouts over the roar of the engine, and Red Robin leans forward to the viewscreen in the center of the dash, pulling up the tracking information and filtering it to the Waynes, bypassing the security needed to access that information. 

“Can you even drive?” Robin asks, and the Batmobile goes over a curb, narrowly missing a bus stop. 

“Not like B drives any better,” Black Bat says. Red Robin leans back. 

“Got her!” he says. “She’s at a warehouse near the docks, or at least her tracker is.”

“Give me that,” Robin says, and then he leans across Red Robin to type something into the viewscreen. 

“What are you doing?” Black Bat and Red Robin say at the same time, and Robin shifts. 

“Her tracker is still on her,” he says, showing Red Robin the screen. “Look, there’s her heartbeat.”

“How did you do that?” Red Robin asks, and Robin shrugs smugly. Black Bat makes a sharp turn and Red Robin crashes into Robin who crashes into the window. Robin hisses in protest and Black Bat hangs another turn in the other direction, and Red Robin falls the other way. 

They arrive at the docks and Black Bat parks in an alley, turning on the locks so nobody can come steal the car. The trio head for the roof of the nearby building and grapple to the warehouse Steph is at. 

There are large ventilation shafts and Robin kicks them open and slides inside. Red Robin follows and Black Bat crawls in after him. It’s a tight fit but none of them are particularly large in the first place so it doesn’t really matter. Red Robin follows his brother until he stops over a vent where voices are coming out. Robin repositions so that he and Red Robin are both hovering over the vent, and Black Bat just crams her face between Red Robin’s shoulder and the wall of the shaft. 

“--can’t believe you fuckers broke my phone, I’ll have to ask my dad for a new one and that’s  _ sooo  _ embarrassing,” a familiar voice says, and Red Robin breathes a sigh of relief that she’s alive and okay. 

“Your dad ain’t buying you a new phone, missy,” an unfamiliar voice says. 

“She means her new dad,” another voice says. “ _ Mister Wayne.”  _

“Oh, right,” the first voice says. “Well, if Mister Wayne can afford your ransom, I’m sure he can get you a new phone.”

“This was all for  _ ransom?  _ Oh joy, I always knew this would happen,” Steph groans. “God, nobody’s been kidnapped for ransom since  _ Jason. _ ”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Robin hisses, and he punches at the grate. It falls, and the two men who captured Steph yelp. Robin swings his legs into the hole and drops. 

One of the first rules of being a Bat is that you can’t let stupid be stupid alone, so Red Robin drops down after him. He feels more than hears Black Bat do the same, her cape rustling against his. 

Steph is tied to a chair. She looks pretty unimpressed. She’s a little bruised up but otherwise seems no worse for wear. The two thugs are in all black, not dressed like henchmen or anything so this seems like one of those rookie jobs that they always think will work but never do. One of the men has a broken nose, and Red Robin thinks that that might be where all the blood came from earlier. 

“Aw, man, this is pathetic,” Red Robin says, straightening from his fighting stance. “Jeez, I don’t even wanna fight these guys.”

“I could destroy them with my pinkie finger,” Black Bat agrees calmly, and she goes over to Steph’s side to start untying her. 

“Omg, Black Bat, you’re  _ sooooooo  _ cool,” Steph gushes, the picture of a starry-eyed fangirl. 

“Not so fast!” the first man says. “You won’t be stopping us this easy!”

“Oh, yawn,” Red Robin says, and then he and Robin attack. 

Once Steph is untied, she and Black Bat join the fray, and it really  _ is  _ pathetically easy to stop them. 

“Damn, not even seven yet,” Steph says, eyeing her watch and standing over the unconscious forms of the kidnapping duo. “Patrol hasn’t even started yet.”

“Yeah, we’ve still got a few more hours,” Red Robin says. 

“We could go see that movie,” Robin says, his gaze locked on the floor. Steph cooes in happiness and wraps her arms around his shoulders. 

“Aww, Dames,” she says. “Were you excited about seeing a movie with me?”

“Do not patronize me,” Robin says. Steph squeezes. 

“Were you worried about me?”

“No,” Robin says, and he shakes off her grip.

“Yes,” Black Bat says, and then she and Steph high-five. 

“Guys, if we’re gonna go see a movie we should go now,” Red Robin says. “B will kill us if we’re late to patrol.”

“He’s already going to kill us,” Robin says, and Red Robin remembers what they did and says, “Actually, hiding in a movie theater sounds like a really good idea.”

“What did you  _ do?”  _ Steph asks gleefully. 

“Stole the Batmobile,” Black Bat says, and Steph’s shriek of joy is probably loud enough to be heard from Metropolis.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> a fun explanation: i see steph as like, bruce's adopted kid but she still lives with crystal sometimes, like if she had divorced parents with shared custody or something. anyway.
> 
> thanks for reading! comments & kudos are always welcome!


End file.
